Mr. Man's Birthday was on Friday; since Harvest was still in the works (we just finished last night -hurrah!), we didn't have much of a celebration. Yummy's gift was his favourite part of the day, because she was so excited to give it to him. I asked her to wait until he'd gotten a cup of coffee and sat down so he wouldn't be overwhelmed right away in the morning, and she was visibly vibrating from the anticipation as she waited patiently for him to do that.

Earlier in the week I helped Yummy make a paper mache pen from Paper Crafts for Children (it was on my summer bucket list and we FINALLY got to it). She needed some help smoothing out the mushy paper, but did all the painting and glitter-ing herself. Referring to our recent colour wheel, I told Yummy to pick four analogous colours (colours that are all next to each other on the colour wheel) to decorate the pen. She decided on four different green hues. I coated it with a thick layer of mod podge afterwards to protect the sparkle. I love how it turned out and we will surely be making more as gifts for Yummy to give (and she also really wants one of her own. In pink.).

I wanted to make Mr. Man a special card to go with the gift, so I asked Yummy to list the things her Daddy likes. She was only able to come up with one item: grain trucks, so I went with that. I drew the template, then scanned and printed it onto blue card stock (Yummy made the executive colour choices), cut out three matching wheels from green foam paper, and poked holes so Yummy could practice her fine-motor skills and attach each wheel to the card using trombones. Inside, she dictated a message for me to write to her Daddy and signed it with her letter.

Here is a download of the card template, so you can make a birthday truck card for a truck-lover in your life. I'm thinking we will be using it for a few birthdays in the family.

Instructions:

Click on each image and print onto card stock.

Fold the truck image in half and cut around the edges.

Use the circle as a template for cutting out three wheels from foam paper.

Poke tiny holes in the centre of each foam wheel and each wheel on the card stock truck.

Insert a trombone into each wheel, attaching it to the truck.

It is a bit of work to help Yummy create gifts for others, but she is really learning about the joy of giving. She loves keeping the secret (and accidentally spilling it several times) of what she has made and reminding everyone about the coming fun. And we even put our knowledge of analogous colours to use!

This post is linked up to these Link Parties; click through for more great ideas!